The 8-Bit Prospective: The Street Fighter

Another one bites the dust

The term “spiritual
sequel” has always intrigued me.Mostly
applying to video games, it’s a term that implies that a
game has strong ties to another one released prior to
it.The said successor will have many things
in common with the predecessor, including themes, styles, or
development teams.Usually, the only thing
separating the two games is the story and characters.Such was the case when Irem Corp. released an arcade
brawler by the name of Vigilante.Introduced in
1988, Vigilante was a side scrolling title that involved punching
and kicking your way through hordes of henchmen so you can save a
very special someone.Seeing the game in action
reminds a person of another Irem arcade classic, Kung-Fu Master
(Kung-Fu on the NES).Having many elements that
were identical with Kung-Fu Master, Vigilante stands out a prime
example of what a spiritual sequel is.The only
things really separating it from the former are the in-game
character, locations and the game console(s) it was ported
to.While Kung-Fu Master ended up on the Nintendo’s 8-bit
home console, Vigilante was ported over to the competing Sega
Master System, giving what some Sega fans hoped would be bragging
rights over the NES.Unfortunately, things
didn’t quite turn out that way.Where
Kung-Fu on the NES was a fun, fluid introduction into the brawler
genre, Vigilante on the SMS is an asinine mess of cheap enemies
and lack of smooth control of the main character.It’s a shame because the visual presentation was
fairly impressive compared to the simple backgrounds and colors
offered by the NES predecessor.But in the end,
it only amounted to giving off a false sense of quality and
one-upmanship.And as has been demonstrated
many times throughout the lifetime of video gaming, good looks
don’t guarantee talent.Not by a long
shot my friend.

As can be expected, the bad guys
finally decided to ruin your day.They’re
a gang known as The Rogues.Starting off as a
smaller group, they never picked a fight with you.But now having gained strength in numbers, The Rouges felt
bold enough to kidnap your girlfriend Maria and make you chase
after them.But like so many other bad ideas,
this was one that sounded good on paper.A
foolish choice on their part because they have no ideawho they’re dealing with (*insert rimshot
here*).And apparently, neither do
you.See, you don’t actually have a
name.But being a protagonist as tough as you
are, you don’t need a name.As far as
they need to know, you are the
“Vigilante”.You have mastered
the art of Kung-fu, wear overalls, and will kick anyone’s
posterior that dares make fun of your fashion sense.And now, you’re coming to rescue Maria from those
ugly goons.Let the fists of fury fly.

One good thing about Vigilante is that
the game isn’t hard to figure out, especially if you played
its step-brother, Kung-Fu. You have your basic moves—punch,
kick, low punch, low kick and a [nearly non-existent] jump
kick.Unlike Kung-fu however, the hero
scrolls to the right only, as opposed to left and right
respectively in every other level.The other
difference is the added ability to utilize nunchucks lying on the
ground.It makes it a bit easier to dish out
the pain when bad guys quickly appear on the scene.And what interesting bad guys there are in this game.

Enemies that choke you are a pain to
deal with because you’re supposed to quickly press the
left/right directions on the control pad to break
free.Sounds easy enough in theory, but
thanks to the sluggish response, you often end up losing
significant amounts of health because you can’t escape fast
enough.Boss battles aren’t any
better.In fact, they’re a nightmare
since it’s hard to judge how near or far you need to be
before attacking.Sure, the instruction manual
says to pay attention to their attack patterns, but doing that is
nearly useless when put into practice.The
final boss is the worst one to fight, but not in the way that
counts as being difficult by design.I’ve
beaten him only once so far, thinking that I was skilled at the
game.But when I went back and tried it again
for this review, he seemed unusually impossible all of a
sudden.Despite a person’s attempt to
improve skills through practice, Vigilante is a game that has what
I call “Russian roulette syndrome”; maybe you’ll
win, maybe you won’t.You can rest
assured that the odds are stacked against you though.

The controls are awful.Walking, punching, and kicking only work well when
you’re doing one move at a time, which isn’t very
helpful.Trying to do a combination of these
moves (which games like often these require) can only be described
as disastrous.The on-screen reaction
time to the controller inputs are too slow.In
addition, the game suffers from poor collision
detection.You practically have to start
attacking just before you’re in arm’s length of the
enemy.This makes it a pain to try any
variation of punch/kick combinations because everything just feels
off.Everything comes to a head when you get
attacked from both sides.At first you may be
able to successfully switch from left to right while chin-checking
thuggish fools a few times, but eventually you’ll come
against at least one enemy that requires more than one
hit.Most times, you can’t get rid of
one enemy fast enough before the other one gets a hold of
you.And heaven forbid you try to pull off a jump
kick.You already have to press buttons 1
& 2 simultaneously just to jump (instead of pressing the up
direction on the pad like in Kung-fu); trying to press both
buttons and the down directional key just isn’t
worth the effort since the input response time is so
jerky.Forget about it.

The graphics are the most
complementary thing about the game.The
backgrounds are fairly realistic, making the setting a little less
cartoonish and a bit grittier.The only thing
working against the gritty look is the hero’s
outfit.I’m not too keen on the
overalls suspenders thing he has going on.It
doesn’t exactly scream “don’t mess with this
guy”.He looks more like he could be a
distant cousin of the Mario Brothers.Each of
the five levels are well-drawn for an 8-bit system.That being said, the game’s speed and character
animation are choppy.And this adds to the
cumbersomeness of trying combinations of your fighting moves.

The sound quality is
alright.Actually, the music portions are
pretty good.The tunes for each area are well
composed and quite catchy, in fact.Most of
all, it captures the theme of game fairly well.The sound effects when your fist and feet make contact with
enemy faces are decent enough.They kind of
just make this “thunk” noise.Oddly
enough, neither the main character, nor the bosses have any audio
quips like they did in Kung-fu.That’s
not a major complaint; it just brings the game down another notch
for me.

It goes without saying that the
gameplay elements of Vigilante on the Master System just
don’t make the grade.It has an
overabundance of playability issues, and not enough redeeming
qualities to make it worth your while.As far
as making an appearance on the Wii’s Virtual Console, it has
yet to be included in the US lineup of games.Interestingly, European Wii owners have the better designed
TurboGraphx-16 version on their VC shopping channel.If Nintendo ever decides to release Vigilante to our local
Virtual Console shores, let’s hope it’s not the Master
System port.It would be a chunk of your
life (and money) you’ll want back later.

This game wasn't half bad...

it was better experienced in the arcades. I remember being shocked as
a kid with how powerful the moves looked in this over the cartoony
Double Dragon. It made me glad for vigilantes in overalls fighting the
good fight and really laying into the baddies.

I don't...

really recall the MS version of this too well, but it was a decent
game on the TG-16. I prefered Black Belt over this, and Kung Fu back
in the day. Its just a shame Sega didn't keep the Fist of the North
Star license on it in the US. Still it was really good.

I Phail?

@ BigMex: I'd love to play
the arcade version of Vigilante and also Kung-Fu. I always love
playing games in their original format.

@ Phantasystar77: Wow, Sega
had Fist of the North Star?! It'd be totally awesome if I could
get my paws on that.

I think Black Belt might be my next Master System purchase.

@ jgusw: Yeah, those were
the thoughts going through my head when I played Vigilante for the
first few times as well. From the standpoint of playablility, it
was hard to believe that Irem was the same developer that made
Kung-Fu. Of course, Irem's not to blame since Sega reprogrammed
the game for their system.

@ BiscuitSpace: You have no
idea, bro-- I acutally had another avatar focused more on the
"doofy hero", but I just didin't like it. I though it
was funnier to show the other guy getting punched in the face.

Your story reminds me of the time when I purchased the NES from
Funcoland (now GameStop). When I got home and opened the box,
they gave me a Super NES instead. In a lesson about honestly, my
dad helped me to see importance of taking it back to them and getting
the NES that I originally paid for. Those were the days.

Gotta play the ROM.

I remember Kung Fu Master, and that it was annoyingly difficult. I
think I only beat it with a cheat on, and only then did I understand
how impossible the game was. The 4th and 5th level boss was annoying
as hell, but mainly the 4th.

I can immagine this game being frustrating, but I would give it a
try, and then cheat my way through if I had to. I'm not the cheating
kind of guy, but some classics, you feel you have no choise.

Not the Street Fighter roots!!

@ Mr.Smashy: No
kidding. Patience is key when playing a game that you don't
particularly enjoy. But one of the good things about reviewing
games like this one is that I learn how to articulate better.
When I'm reviewing a game I enjoyed, I actually find it more difficult
to write it in a way that doesn't sound like I'm just gushing.

@ Jonathon_Striker: It like
I always say..."If it can't be beat...cheat!"

@ TaureanWilliams: And
those bad things are all true.

I used to wonder why I had never heard of the original Street Fighter
year earlier when SF II was the new kid on the block. Then I
played the original on the Capcom Collection game and found out
why. Man, that thing was clunky!

haha

that covers is hilarious. It looks like the guy getting hit is kinda
enjoying it and begging for more. Never played this game, but it sure
looks hard as fuck. All those ugly retro games are so mean and unfair.

I'm glad you mentioned it was on the TG-16

I was the only kid on the block to have a Turbo-Grafx 16 along with
this game as a kid and I loved the system. The biggest flaw of
course was that it only have one controller port (Fail!) but I was for
the most part very satisfied with the games.

Don't mess with the 'ralls

@ bombtrak: Yeah, I guess
the only other difference would be that Vigilante didn't allow you
scroll up and down like in Double D.

I'm with you on the overalls, my friend. Gonna get me a
pair. That, and some nunchucks.

@ Jenova: Or maybe the guys
was acutally laughing. "You call that a punch? Ha!" I mean, if a dude wearing demin suspenders
punched me out, I'd have to laugh too.

@ TheStranger: As you can
see by some of the other comments, it looks the TG-16 version was
better known than the SMS. I had no idea myself because I had
never heard of Vigilante until recently. The closes I came to
that game back then was Kung-Fu...and I had only seen that game once
back then. Now, I'm curious as to playing the TG-16
version. I have a semi-obsession with games that not exsisted on
the NES or SMS, but other console as well. Since I missed out on
the TG-16, I always try to keep an eye for releases on the Virtual Console.

@ rmsk8r05: Double Dragon
was one of those games you play late into the night. My most
memorable section is stage 2 when the helicopter shows up. And
later when you acutally fight inside the chopper. I used to
think it was such a difficult section becasue you could get sucked out
and lose a life (or was it hit points?).

@ scion_of_life:
Yeah...it's sad when games like Beyond Good and Evil get overlooked
because everyone is buy the lastest cookie-cutter software from
EA. Sucks, man.

@ Dioxel-GunArson: I have
got to play Bad Dudes on the NES sometime. It reeks of 80's cheese.

@ Scottsdale: Thanks
bro! I often worry that my posts will become old hat after
awhile, but it's all I got. I do have a new "feature",
if you will, that I hope to keep going in between reviews. I'm
working on the first bit right now. Thank you for taking the
time to read my stuff.

Kung Fu Chaos was pretty good...

Yeah, the worst games I've ever played involved the game taking my
button presses as "suggestions", if you know what I
mean. You should review Mortal Kombat Advance; it was the first
game ever to get a 0.0 out of 10 in the late, great EGM (R.I.P.)...

That guy on the cover (the one getting hit) looks totally re-re
XD Come to think of it, so does the hero, lol...

MKA

Btw...

...Bad Dudes in the arcade = awesome (at least back in the day
anyway). Bad Dudes on the NES = Fail :-/ Mostly because of
when the guy says "I'm Bad!" at the end of each level.
On the NES, he sounds neutered, LOL...

Too band the Master System didn't catch on better in the US

It was so much more powerful than the NES but the majority of the
games were terrible. My brother and I got one but only had a
handful of games because most were crap and hardly any stores allotted
the system much shelf space so it was nigh impossible to track down
the few gems of the console.